Tuesday, September 13, 2005

What I'm Not Eating For Dinner

I decided I was going to make a nice dinner for myself tonight. Maybe I was inspired by The Big Ho's yummy looking dinner he made on the weekend. So I decided I was going to have some Eye-ta-lee-an food, and picked up some lovely ingredients: a couple tomatoes, a lovely red pepper and a lovely yellow one too. I got lotsa mushrooms and a little bag of onions, and got Butcher-Man to grind me up some pork. (I'd rather beef, but it's so expensive.) I even kept a watchful eye on nice Mister Butcher-Man to make sure he cuts out the little bits of cartilage in the meat he was about to grind. Koreans power through those bones they they eat pork, think sangyepsal, but it makes me nauseous to bite into it, and if Butcher-Man grinds them in with the meat, it assures crunchy little bits in every bite. Yeee-uck.

Just as I left the grocery store, the sky opened up and it started pouring. I took shelter beneath the stationery store canopy, and was talked inside by the nice owners. I decided to pick up some little stickers for my little niece, as I'm sending out a package tomorrow for my brother's birthday. The shop owner gave me about 20 glittery little bracelet stickers "service" (free!) Once I came back outside, the rain had died down so I set off, only to have it REALLY POUR about 5 minutes later. I got home soaked. Great.

Got home, chopped up an onion, and made me some tasty meatballs by mixing the ground pork with the onion, some basil and oregano, garlic powder, pepper, salt, garlic, a couple eggs and some bread crumbs. They was browning nicely while I chopped up the rest of the vegetables to sautee in another pan. Everything was timed well, the veggies were very al dente, and the meatballs nice and golden. Time to add some sauce.

I looked for the sauce.

Where's the sauce?

I unloaded all my cupboards. No sauce. So I guess the answer to "where's the sauce?" is: "at the store on the shelf." Shit! I usually have these preserved staple foods around, I just assumed I replaced the bottles I used the last time I made spaghetti (which was maybe last winter?) I actually found one small bottle of sauce, which would be enough for a couple meals, I guess, but if I bother dividing the meatballs and veggies to simmer in the mini-amount of sauce I have, I'm just going to have to repeat the whole bloody thing tomorrow with the remaining ingredients. Pain in the ass. I'm going to chuck everything in the fridge and deal with it tomorrow when I gets me some more sauce. I can't believe I'm so stupid. My apartment smells really good now, and I can't have any of it. I just Spaghetti-Nazi'd myself.

4 comments:

Kevin Kim said...

Damn, sorry to hear about the saucical woes. Show us PICTURES of the completed product!!


Kevin

Anonymous said...

Just use ketchup :)

The wife of a friend of mine made some spaghetti once and she ran into the same problem - no sauce so she used ketchup instead.

We tried to eat it, we really did...but ended up ordering out in the end.

Kevin Kim said...

Waaaaaaaaiiiiit a minute-- you've got a couple tomatoes, ja? Skin them, chop up what's left, toss that mess in a saucepan with some salt, pepper, olive oil, sugar, basil, and parsley, and you've got yourself a cheapie (but mostly legitimate) spaghetti sauce! Add a splash of wine for flair, and some sliced mushrooms for more texture.

Voila!


Kevin

Jelly said...

Hi Kevin! Did it take you a whole day to come you with that? You sweet, sweet soul! Pats to your precious head!

I'm joking. Yes, you're right, it might have been ok,...but I like my spaghetti like I like my men,...saucy baby! Yeah!

Sorry, I'm lame,..someone needs to come kick me in my head.

Yes, actually, I mentioned I had a little jar of sauce, and it would have made for a decent meal, but I would have had to cook the (lovely brown on the outside, but raw on the inside) meatballs in 2 batches, and I just couldn't be bothered. You, being of the 2-burner type, can sympathize...it takes a burner for the browning meatballs, one for the veggies, then the 1st one for the sauce (for some time) and the other for the noodles, and it heats up my whole aparmtment a LOT!

My sister in law's mother does it up right every year, grinds up plum tomatoes, cooks 'em up right and throws in a few sprigs of fresh basil before she closes the canning lids. Yummers. I wish I could manage that here, but as it is I have to get by with jazzed up Classico or Prego.

Yummy, though. I even have real parmesean reggiano I picked up in Japan. Tomorrow will be YUMMY!

Nomad-- Ketchup? Sinful!